NPR News Now - NPR News: 09-19-2025 4PM EDT

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

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ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel after a joke about the response from the right to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and after a threat from the FCC chair. This week on Consider This What It Says About Free Speech and about the business of network television. Listen to Consider this on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. A key vaccine CDC advisory panel was poised to require people get a prescription before getting a COVID vaccine, but today that measure failed in a close vote. NPR Salina Simmons-Duffin reports the panel also decided not to change its recommendation for a baby's first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. For decades, the CDC has recommended that infants get their first hepatitis B vaccine dose within the first. 24 hours of life. That policy has long been a target of anti-vaccine advocates, including

health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. But in a surprise move Friday, one of Kennedy's hand-picked members of CDC's vaccine advisory panel, Dr. Robert Malone, made a motion to postpone a vote on the matter indefinitely. I believe that there's enough ambiguity here that I believe that a vote today is premature. The committee voted 11 to 1 to table action on the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine with Chair Martin Koldorf as the lone dissenting vote. Selina Simmons-Duffin, NPR News. A Republican measure to keep federal agencies funded for seven weeks after funding expires at Mumsend has hit a snag. The short-term bill passed in the House but stalled in the Senate. Most congressional Democrats were opposed. President Trump says on social media he and Chinese President

Xi Jinping made progress toward approving a deal on TikTok in their phone call today. He says they have agreed to meet at the APEC summit in South Korea late next month, and Trump also says he'll visit China early next year. TikTok has an estimated 170 million users in the U.S. alone. It's been under threat of being banned over Washington's concerns that Beijing might gain access to sensitive data through TikTok's Chinese parent company Bike Dance. Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, says his country is setting up channels to export weapons produced by Ukraine's fast-growing defense sector. NPRs, Joanna Kisses, reports from

Kyiv that the exports can finance the production of more weapons, which Ukraine needs as Russia's war, drags on. In his evening video address, Zelensky said he hoped to present the export platforms in the next couple of weeks. He said Ukraine already has a surplus of some modern weapons and the capacity to produce even more of these weapons with additional financing. These weapons include sea drones, which have helped Ukraine drive out part of Russia's Black Sea fleet and also anti-tank weapons. He said Ukraine will still prioritize the arming of brigades and stocking up arsenals. He said the first export channel will be open with the U.S., the second with European allies, and the third with other partners. Joanna Kikisis, NPR News, Kav.

From Washington, this is NPR News. A federal judge in Florida is rejecting President Trump's $15 billion defamation suit against the New York Times saying the 85-page complaint is full of tedious and burdensome language with no bearing on the case. The judge is giving Trump's lawyers 28 days to file an amended complaint and limits him to 40 pages. Grammy-winning songwriter Brett James has died. He was 57 years old. The Associated Press cites North Carolina State Patrol in reporting, he was among three people, killed. when there's small playing crash yesterday in the woods in Franklin under unknown circumstances. NPR's Isabella Gomez-Armiento reports on Brett James' legacy and music. Brett James worked with some of the biggest names in country music, including Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, and Carrie Underwood.

James won a Grammy Award in 2007 as part of the team that penned Jesus Take the Wheel. He also wrote songs for pop artists like Jessica Simpson, The Backstreet Boys, and Taylor Swift. Why would you want to break a perfectly good heart? Brett James was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2020. The songwriters' hall posted in his honor following news of his death. Isabella Gomez-Armiento and PR News. Authorities say mudslides and debris flows from yesterday's heavy rainfall

on several Southern California mountain communities trapped motorists for 10 hours. At least half a dozen vehicles were stranded on a narrow and winding road, but officials say no one was heard. I'm Lakshmi saying NPR News. Listen to this podcast sponsor-free on Amazon Music with a prime membership or any podcast app by subscribing to NPR NewsNow Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.